Subject: Anything
Author:
Posted on: 2013-07-11 03:23:00 UTC
As it said on the tin, anything. However, arachnids may not be cybernetic, as they are concentrated awesome already, and a robot scorpion would blow minds in a messy fashion.
Do to having previously found small roleplay threads on this very board, I shall attempt to create on as a parody of the race to the finish treasure hunts that occasionaly crop up in media.
On a nondescript, rather generic stock island in the pacific, on a latitude that should not exist, a hut made of generic surface rose out if white, quartz derived sand. It was in front of a coconut palm that had no relevance to this story other than as a peice of scenery. In the generic hut was a significantly more important collection of items. Mostly maps, and compasses. It also contained a floor show featuring scantily clad ladies, but they would be gone long before anything that could oogle at them would show up. In a room with faded brown walls, a conservativly dressed stereotypical englishman was wearing a somber suit, looking out through a crater in the wall at the surf. He was waiting for a motley crew of guests who had been summoned by a unknown force who knew the power of money. Somewhere on the island, in one of its predictable biomes that always seemed to crop up on generic tropical islands was a treasure beyond beliving. He was there to hand out maps, and watch various vehicles the visitors would use to reach the island. Through the crater in the wall, Reginald could see a plume of spray. He sighed, and then politely asked the author to refer to him as either 'him', or 'he'. The author complied. The english man currently refered to as he opened a door that sprung into being for the purpose of letting in the guests. Said door was a generic gray slab, but its color was irrelevant, and the plot unfolded without it. Mr.He, as the englishman prefered to be called, opened the door loudly. This knocked a few commas from the rafters that didn't exist, and they slotted into place in the areas where said commas thought they ought to go. Oblivious to the intresting event, Mr.He propped said door open as the first of many walked, through the entrance into this minefield of a paragraph.
What sort of characters would we role-play here? Agents, Boarders, random bit characters, gentleman adventurers, Cybermen, jet-pack-toting pot roasts, ethereal energy beings, potato salad, secret agents, elevated dolphins, what?
In case we can be anything we want, I will probably go with a robot scorpion. There aren't enough robot scorpions in pirate adventures, which is a shame, because they would likely be able to swash as effectively as any buckle, provided that they have a full range of articulation to maximize their swash/non-swash ratio.
As it said on the tin, anything. However, arachnids may not be cybernetic, as they are concentrated awesome already, and a robot scorpion would blow minds in a messy fashion.
As he finished the arrangements for the contestants' arrival, Reginald He could hear a distant sound prefacing the first of those allegedly lucky few. With the door open, Mr. He could see that the vehicle was an ungainly-looking thing, with what he suspected were likely a few more propellers than it actually needed to get around. It landed, displacing a large quantity of the beach's looser sand as it did so, and several of the lights on the front part of the craft switched off with a click.
A rectangular hatch opened up in the bottom of the craft, releasing the sort of descent ramp that even the finest of alien-encounter movies hadn't been able to make look stylish, and a faint purplish light could be seen from the inside. This glow was quickly eclipsed by the contestant, who scuttled out of the craft with a speed and motivation familiar to those that have seen small children vacating a minivan at a roadside rest stop. The walkway retracted with a deep whooshing sound as the ship's former inhabitant moved toward the hut.
The contestant stretched its eight mechanical-armored legs for a few seconds before walking through the door, which Mr. He had kept patiently propped open throughout this entire sequence, despite the fact that doing so had probably let in at least a half-dozen of the island's prodigious population of flies. Mr. He knew very well how important it was to put across the impression of being an excellent host.
Now that the contestant had moved into good light, Mr. He could see that it was a roughly human-sized scorpionlike creature, either black in color or one of the variations of blue or purple that looks black at first glance. In place of the traditional arachnid exoskeleton, the contestant had been outfitted with mechanical parts, possibly because of the weight and oxygen exchange problems that a scorpion exoskeleton would have when scaled up.
The newcomer reached into one of the numerous small bags it had strapped to its body, pulling out a book entitled "How to Speak to Humans: Volume II of VI". The cover featured an exuberant-looking sunglasses-wearing man set against an ugly green background and posed in a manner common to corporate mascots or the terminally confused. The scorpionlike being looked between its book and the host, turning a few pages with its enormous claws before it spoke.
"DUUUUDE!" it began, its voice treating the U sound as a low drone. It flipped to the next page with its claw as Mr. He blinked in confusion. "Such a truly righteous avenue you set up for us, bro! I'm totally psyched for the quest, and all the complete rad action that entails!" It paused, looking up at Mr. He with off-white eyes narrowed slightly in thought.
"Excuse me," it continued, its voice dropping from its previous excited shout to a quieter humming sound. "But is there a human slang word for 'entails'? It's not in the book, you see, but it really doesn't sound like something humans would say, if you catch my meaning. I suppose I could use 'goes with', but that isn't a complete sentence. Do humans speak in incomplete sentences on occasion? I'm new at this, if you didn't notice."
(( A couple of notes first:
1. Since this isn't specified in the rules [are there rules?], I'm asking that no one else write my characters' actions, dialogue, thoughts, etc. If TFM wants to open a pit under their feet or shoot poisoned darts at them or whatever for plot reasons, I promise I'll play fair with their reactions. Same goes for everyone else. {= )
2. This is almost certain to be non-canon for my agents.
3. Outhra, I see what you did there! Two things, anyway. Mr. He will forevermore have a cue ball for a head in my mind, and oh dear god, the implications of `90s Kid writing a language guide. {X D
That is all. ))
In the far distance, a speck appeared in the sky high above the deep blue ocean waves. If one looked directly at it, it would appear to hover, unchanging, but if one looked away for a few minutes and then back again, it would become clear that it was getting bigger. It was making a bee-line for the island. Gradually, it resolved itself into a silhouette with wings, horns, and a tail. At last, a dark blue and purple dragon with two riders touched down on the shore, kicking up whirlwinds of sand with each downbeat of his wings.
The first rider, a short woman in reddish, light leather armor and a helmet with tall helical horns, immediately vaulted to the ground. A large spiked mace hung at her side. Under the helmet, her hair was dark red and pulled back into a fat braid, and her eyes were a piercing bright blue. She looked about her eagerly. "Yup, this is it! Good work, Snerri!" She gave the Monstrous Nightmare a pat on the neck.
Her companion took a moment to remove his heavy flight jacket before dismounting. Underneath, he wore a light blue shirt with loose sleeves and laces down the chest. He was much taller than she was, darker-skinned and black-haired. His most notable feature (besides a passing resemblance to Gerard Butler) was the lacy network of scars that covered the right side of his face, distorting his expression into a constant half-grimace. His right eye was blind and had a milky-blue color while the other was hazel. He appeared less than impressed with his current situation.
"And you told me there was no way out of Headquarters," the woman said, grinning at him. "Come on, old man! Adventure awaits!" She started toward the hut.
"I still think this is a bad idea," he replied, trudging after her. "You never told me where you got the information about this 'treasure hunt' and what in the land, sea, or sky is that?" He had spotted the large arachnoid being through the rather singed-looking hole in the hut's wall. (What had impacted there to cause it, who knew?) He stopped short, and his hand went immediately to the sledgehammer that hung from his belt.
The Viking woman paused, sizing up the stranger, then shrugged and continued on her way. "Competition, probably. Snerri can take it."
"I hope you're right," the man muttered, and followed her without taking his hand from his weapon.
On the horizon, a large plume of spray appeared. Said plume was not being caused by, say, a propeller or anything. It was being made by a special spout who's sole purpose was to kick of a jaunty spray of blue water. The craft it was attached to was a large chinese junk, beautifuly crafted, and seemingly etheral. Less etheral was the large mongoose wearing a stained urple vest, as well as a bleen tricorn hat. He was currently belting out the lyrics to Billy Joel's song, Stiletto. This song was not meant to be sung in a rocky baritone at the top of one's lungs, and consequently did not sound good. The mongoose pirate knockoff seemed to remember that he was sailing in a boat which was starting to tilt.
Strapping a rather un-piratelike portable anti-G disc to his back, the mongoose dropped a match through the gaping hole in the junk's deck, and jumped fifteen feet in the air, aided by his anti-G disc. The explosion blew his the remaining distance to shore, and he let out an elated whoop. His anti-G disc fizzled, then popped before he hit the sand. A few feet of water broke his fall, and after he spit up a gallon of seawater, the mongoose pirate waded to shore, the swaggered up to the beach hut. Ignoring Mr.He, the mongoose leaped through the crater in the wall, wrung out his hat, and adressed all present. "Are yew sorry bunch all that is gonna come? Then that treasure is already mine lads!" He noticed the one female in the room, and bowed apologeticaly at her. "And, lasses." The mongoose got down an all fours, and shook himself, sending water from his grey fur everywhere. He then sat down on a chair that had formed out of ambient moisture, and pointed out the floorshow that supposedly had already left.
...although after all the general cleverness presented in the last few posts, I'm feeling somewhat uncultured.
*AHEM*
Preceding a billow of inexplicably rust-colored dust that put even the mongoose-buccaneer's wake to shame, the Generic Corrupt Man of High Status urged his rabid bay mare into a yet-swifter gallop and spit a wad of unmentionable material onto the glittering sand- much to the chagrin of Mr. He.
"C'mon, boys!" he whooped caustically. "We got us some gold to.. er... to locate."
"Boss?" said Mindless Goon #17. "D'ya think they got rhubarb pie on this here deserted island? 'Cause I got me a hankerin' for some of mah ma's rhubarb pie."
"Roisterin' fool," the GCMOHS (Generic Corrupt Man of High Status) snarled. "Yer face is a rhubarb pie." Mr. He did, of course, keep a hearty stock of the doughy delicacy in his cottage, which was perfectly visible to the GCMOHS as it was stored in an engraved glass pantry on the pool deck for unknown reasons, but as a stereotypical western villain, making demeaning comments about his goons' intellect was one of the terms on his contract.
At the mention of 'roistering,' Mindless Goons #4-12 burst into a chorus of "Yankee Doodle" interspersed with random shrieks of mirth and rampaged over the beach firing their pistols pointlessly into the air. Mr. He sighed and buried his face in his palms.
((What happens when a group of people might be going, say down a hallway, or away from a hazard? Does each new post from a certain character need to start with the person RPing that character saying "And I leap away from the sudden wall of fire too"? Just to clarify here. This is my first RP thread.))
"Wonderful," Reginald He said to himself as he looked at the freshly formed hole in the wall. "The insects are definitely going to be getting in now."
Agitated by the disruption in the hut's structure as well as the piratical mongoose that had leapt through said disruption, the swarm of punctuation marks flew from their places in the wall and flitted around the hut, a few experimentally gathering near the singed hole as though to ensure themselves that it wasn't going to be changing in size or sealing back up.
An errant irony mark, spotting a small lizard that had scuttled toward the house to escape the racket of the Mindless Goons, swooped toward it and swallowed the startled reptile with an audible horrk. To spare their sanity, none present asked themselves where exactly its mouth was.
Mr. He sighed in irritation, looking between the hole in the wall, the guests inside his domicile, and the numerous ill-kempt beings running around outside of it firing pistols. This was not going as planned. Regardless, he still had a job to do.
"I'll fetch the maps," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring of keys. "Help yourselves to the licorice on the far table, but try your best to put out any fires you may start in my absence before I come back."
The scorpionlike being raised a claw, flipping to a page in its book and briefly scanning said page. "Would this be related to the concept of 'sick burns'?"
"No, but if any 'sick burns' result in perfectly able-bodied conflagrations, I'd prefer you get rid of the latter before dealing with the former." Mr. He replied, his back to the guests as he exited the room.
The scorpionlike being took this as his cue to socialize, and, recognizing the one-eyed grimacing man as a human based on the description given in his book, decided to test out his communication skills.
Walking over to the human, he cleared his throat with a sound like a broken stapler and extended a claw in greeting.
"Excellent entrance, dude! Hey, now that we all have time to chillax, I figure it's high time we pass our names around! A slammin' bro like yourself must have a bodacious moniker to match, am I right?"
(( In my experience, if something happens to all the PCs, each player writes their own character(s)'s response(s). Some characters might be able to jump out of the way, some might try to help another first, some just might not be so lucky that day. Since it's not polite for even the guy running the game to control people's characters without first telling them that's the kind of game it is, I'm assuming that applies here.
Also, to avoid overlap and confusion in the future, it helps to keep an extra tab open and refresh right before you post to make sure nothing happened while you were typing. Also helps to be able to refer back to all the crazy shenanigans while formulating a reply, which I will be doing a lot, I can tell you. This is quite possibly the crackiest RP I've ever been in. You picked a heck of a way to start!
And now to go play catch-up with all the IC events that happened while I was away doing RL stuff.
~Neshomeh ))
Reginald He let in the rabble in, and mentaly recalculated his pay. He stepped onto a podium that had grown out of the floor, and spoke into a strangely organic looking microphone. "May I have everyon- , Hello, any-." He was being interupted by talking, arguing, and general rudeness. Due to the unstable nature of reality on the island, many narrative laws would mesh without rhyme, or reason. His next words were in the legendary caps lock of rage, an impossible force of nature that occurred only when narrative laws were concerned. "SHADDUP YOU MISERABLE LOT! I'LL GUT YOU IF YOU DON'T SHUT YER MISERABLE PIE-HOLES!" After getting their attention, Mr.He continued in a more level tone. "Maps, and explanations will be passed out later. The biological zeppelins above you will pass out snacks. Good day." Mr. He spontaneously disentigrated on an atomic scale, his purpose served. It may have been a little sadistic.
((I made another post before temporal fax machine sent this last one, and now Mr. He is doing two separate things at once. How does an RP thread deal with this?))
Mr. He died due to incompatible realities slamming together. But officially, my post is the current reality
((Because mine had a few links to something my character was doing. Wait, hold on, I have a solution.))
Just before Reginald He burst into a spray of particles, another Reginald He, identical to the previous one in every way, walked through the door that he had recently vacated, clutching a transparent briefcase full of maps.
"Oh, coeur noir," he muttered as he walked to an adjoining room. "If they'd told me they were sending exploding duplicates to make announcements, I wouldn't have planned out my 'good luck, go away' speech. Now I'm not even going to say it."
He leaned into the room into which his duplicate had shepherded the previous contestants. "While I sort through the maps, you lot... mingle. If you see another exploding duplicate, make sure you stay at least three feet away from it at all times."
"But how do we tell it apart from you?" asked Mindless Goon #2, showing an odd upsurge of intelligence just as Mr. He was leaving.
"I'll be the one holding the briefcase," Mr. He replied from the adjoining room.
((There! I solved the continuity issue, and advanced the RP in the process! I may have introduced something even more confusing with exploding duplicates of Mr. He, but Mr. He has tiny zeppelins and a swarm of commas living in his house. Exploding duplicates aren't that implausible in comparison.))
Mindless Goon #17 shot #2 an appraising glance, awestruck by his apparent brilliance, while simultaneously pondering whether "pie-holes" was intended metaphorically, or as a literal foreshadowing to the imminent consumption of said pastries. He must have appeared rather lackadaisical, because the GCMOHS brutally cuffed him upside the head, bellowing, "Stop yer doltish stargazin', ye useless varmint!"
"But, boss, I was just wond'rin' whether the rhubarb pie-"
Roaring with undiluted rage, the GCMOHS drove his meaty fist into #17's barrel-shaped stomach, sending the hapless minion careening through the swinging saloon doors that had suddenly replaced the cottage's former grey slab. There was an awkward silence, broken only by the crackle of a tumbleweed chittering along the floor.
Outside, Mindless Goons #4-12 realized that no heavily powdered damsels were wailing at their fine display of 'roistering' and sought further entertainment. #4, 7, 8, and 11 whipped out a collapsable bar table and settled down for a cliché game of poker, while #5, 6, and 9 delighted in tethering #17 by the ankle to the GCMOHS's mare and guffawed uproariously as the foaming beast cantered over the beach with #17 dragging and bumping behind. #12 picked his nose and stared into the middle distance, then spontaneously combusted.
Shaken out of their stupor, the inhabitants of Mr. He's cottage returned to the matter at hand.
((And in Neshomeh's, he has a cue ball for a head, and I'm pretty sure temporal fax machine sees him differently as well. Let's agree to never give him any specific description, so that way we can all picture him as we like.))
When the Generic Corrupt Man Of High Status had thrown #17 out the Generic Door, resolving it into a saloon door in the process, a tumbleweed had crept in from outside. Tumbleweeds usually do this in situations involving barren wastelands or sudden silences. Exactly why is unknown, though the frequency of these appearances suggests a sort of sentience among tumbleweedkind, or possibly even a connection to a lesser-known Narrative Law of the sort that causes crickets to chirp when someone in the room cracks an unfunny joke.
The tumbleweed that entered the room upon the forced expulsion of Mindless Goon #17, however, was not only sentient, but sapient, and not only a tumbleweed, but a Tumbleweed. Its name was Weed Thirty-Seven, and it was just about as confused as everyone else. Unlike the others, however, it did not mingle. It decided to get some answers.
You wouldn't think that a five-foot Tumbleweed would be able to move past a small crowd of people without raising some eyebrows, but of that crowd, several had seen mobile plants before and found the addition of another no big deal, a few hadn't been looking over at the singed hole in the wall when Weed Thirty-Seven came in, and the others were too focused on the fight to hear anything but the rustling of its dry stems as it moved along the floor.
Slipping behind the piratical mongoose, who had not moved since he he had last sat down and may have fallen asleep, the Tumbleweed moved into the adjoining room, finding Mr. He at a small pentagonal table organizing a large pile of overly browned and wrinkly-looking treasure maps into smaller and more manageable piles. The host of the treasure hunt looked up, acknowledged the new arrival with a nod, and went back to sorting.
What is this place? Weed Thirty-Seven asked, moving closer to the table. Mr. He crossed his arms over the maps before answering, conveniently hiding their contents in the process.
"It doesn't matter where we are or what we are," Mr. He replied. "What matters is what we are doing, and the manner in which we choose to do it."
That did not answer my question. Weed Thirty-Seven pointed out. Mr. He shrugged.
"Sometimes if I'm cryptic enough, people don't press further." He picked up one of the piles of maps, inspected it briefly, and placed it back in the table. "The hunt will begin soon. You are among the last to arrive. I had intended for other contestants, but it appears that there will not be as many as I scheduled. I hope the absentees are all right." he intoned in a voice that implied that he did not much care one way or the other. "Now, if you would be so kind as to go stand by the rest, all of your questions will be answered."
Will they really? asked Weed Thirty-Seven.
"Not really. In actuality, it's far more likely that your next few minutes will raise at least two new ones." Mr. He reached for the pile of maps closest to him, placing them in his briefcase with one hand as he stacked the remaining maps with the other. "Either way, it's best we get started. We have dilly-dallied long enough."
((What can I say, I was inspired by your mention of a tumbleweed. Since the events of this RP are non-canon for Neshomeh's agents, they'll be non-canon for Thirty-Seven too, since that only makes sense. Weed Thirty-Seven is an established Flower, in case you were wondering, but it's an extremely minor one. I don't think it's ever even had a line before now.))
The bucaneer mongoose was very bored. He needed a fight, or tall tales, or explosions. Jumping up, he went over to the GCPOHR. He thought that was the acronym, anyway. Leaning over, the mongoose pirate knockoff slung his arm casualy around the Generic person whosiwhat while poking his claws into the chest of said whosiwhat. Whispering, the mongoose whipered in a redundant whisper. "If yew try the ol' steal the treasure at the last minute, evil laugh schtick, I will personaly rip out yer liver, n' eat it." He the clapped Whosiwhat on the back in a friendly fashion, and gave a 'lets' see what color your innards are wink.' He then shoved the viking female, and robot roughly out of his way, and lept onto the podium, kicking Mr. He over. "We all got summon 'ear fer a treasure hunt, right? Then lets' stop jaw flappin' an git on with it!" He the jumped off, and clicked suggestively at the female viking. The eyebrow, or rather the equivalent of eyebrow wagging wasn't very subtle either. "All yours Reggie." He shouted over to He.
What a very specific sort of wink that mongoose just made. remarked Weed Thirty-Seven as it shuffled back into the main room. It settled into a place in the room near the swarm of punctuation marks, which were currently hunting down and devouring some of the large number of flies that had entered through the singed hole in the wall.
A small robot, which had materialized in the air holding a bowl of licorice gummy bears only to be shoved away by the pirate mongoose, emitted a series of sad beeps. The biomechanical scorpion patted it on the head in an attempt to be soothing that turned out, at best, debatably successful, and grabbed a few gummy bears out of its bowl.
The duplicate of Mr. He by the podium stood up from the ground, dusted himself off, and then deftly picked the mongoose up with one hand.
"There was no call whatsoever for that sort of behavior," the authentic Mr. He replied as the mongoose kicked at the duplicate's chest. "I have been nothing but cordial to you lot, and then one of you sees fit to assault one of my doubles." He glanced over at said double. "What are you here for, anyway?"
The duplicate looked over at his counterpart. "I was supposed to be here to make another announcement, but I seem to have been interrupted."
Mr. He sighed. "When will they learn that just because I'm gone for ten seconds, that doesn't mean I can't do my job?" He waved a hand dismissively. "Off with you."
Nodding in acceptance, the duplicate burst into a spray of particles, which flew out of the door, possibly to reform at a later time. The mongoose, deprived of anyone holding him in the air, fell to the ground with an impact that knocked his hat off his head.
Mr. He was ready to explain everything, as the mongoose had picked himself up, and was holding him at swordpoint. He calmly said to the mongoose. "*******." The symbols represent a short period of activity characterized by foul language, and heavy violence. After said episode was over, Mr. He was ready to talk, and would now have a lifelong phobia of angry mongooses. The scuffle had attracted the attention of everyone in the room, and those who had eyes were staring. Better save face. "You have all been brought here to find a fantastic treasure. You will all notice that maps of the island have appeared in your manipulatory organs. The biomes of the island are arranged in this order: Beach. Rainforest, which will have many deadly unreal creatures, especialy snakes. Desert, which also has many unreal animals. Finaly, in the middle of the island is a enormus spire of obsidian. At the top is the treasure, gaurded by an unknow beast. You shall be in teams for this hunt, otherwise you forfeit. Rimwarst, you and the vikings will be one team. Oh, stop frowning you miserable mongoose! Generic person of high status, you are with Cllllick snerk ctink. Yes, that is the scorpion's name. Tumbleweed, you are with me, and my exploding duplicates. Let us begin!"
Mr. He sighed and shook his head as his duplicate made a right fool of himself. How the mongoose had managed to hold a cloud of particles at swordpoint long enough for it to reassemble itself was anyone's guess, but seeing as said mongoose had managed to make a chair out of ambient moisture earlier, this may have been due to his own manipulatory powers. Why did the duplicate choose to reform? Anyone's guess, though it may have been due to this copy's aggressiveness.
"If you had bothered to read the lists, you would actually know their names, and not need to guess. Only one of the two who arrived on the dragon is a "Viking", the scorpion's name is not a stereotypical insect name, and I will not be going on the hunt. I suppose a few of my duplicates may be showing up every once in a while, but they will not be your duplicates. We can't be going around having duplicates of duplicates. Then one of the duplicated duplicates would duplicate himself, and we would have a mess on our hands." Mr. He waved a hand, and the duplicate shattered.
"Good riddance." Mr. He remarked, rubbing his hands together. He turned to the group, but not before pushing the podium back into the floor. "What my duplicate told you about the island is true, though it may have been because it was most of what he was programmed to know. However, I will allow the teams he formed to stand. Weed Thirty-Seven, you can go with some of the Goons, because my double will not be joining you."
((temporal fax machine, you really shouldn't be naming my character without my consent, or doing other things of the sort. It's even worse than assuming its actions. Either way, it looks as though the hunt is on.))
The one-eyed man was not expecting to be approached by a large bug-monster immediately upon setting foot in the hut. He stopped short as his partner continued blithely on her way around the room. He reflexively recoiled from the claw stuck out at him, turning his head slightly so that the creature was squarely in view of his left eye, and he loosened his hammer in its loop.
And then the thing talked.
He understood about half the words, and it took a moment for those to sink in. "You want to know my name?" he asked slowly, trying out the idea. It still made sense once he's said it aloud, and he figured any potential clawing and goring would have happened by now if it were going to, so he surrendered to the bizarre situation. "All right. Derik, Agent Derik. Um." He tentatively took the thing's clawtip and shook.
And that was about when the first Mr. He got up on stage, shouted at them, and blew up, which was a conversation killer if ever there was one.
"How rude," Derik remarked, slightly stunned.
Meanwhile, his partner had her own problems. Random explosions aside, she didn't take kindly to being shoved, much less being leered at shortly thereafter, by a walking fur coat. She narrowed her eyes at the creature, and suddenly, her mace was in her hands.
"Hey, fuzzy! If you want out of this thing early, all you gotta do is say so. I will put you down right now." In the classic threatening gesture of low-lifes with bludgeoning weapons, she bounced the haft of the mace against the palm of one hand.
The biomechanical scorpion swallowed its licorice and nodded in appreciation.
"Ah, so you've got a Bond, James Bond deal up with your name, huh? That's wicked tight. Wishin' I could set my name in so righteous a manner."
As the duplicate Mr. He announced the teams, the scorpion bristled, or at least bristled as well as one can with a mechanical exoskeleton.
"Hey, that isn't my name! There must have been a different scorpion contestant that never showed up." Blinking, it turned back to Derik, Agent Derik, and changed its voice back to the louder tone it had used earlier.
"Woah, my bad, dude! Forgot that I was still leaving this hangout hanging. The name's Zeltar, no surname to mix my moniker around with, but woah, I'm betting such an act would be just the bomb!" It plucked another few gummy bears from the small robot's bowl. "I wonder how long these teams'll last. It'd have been right ace if we could assign ourselves, but we can't all get what we want, huh?"
The small cloud of particals buzzed annoyingly. "Well, some named that was supposed to show up! You weren't the only robot scorpion on the list, and how was I supposed to know!" It kept wheedling until it finaly fizzed out of existence. Frankly, the ruddy thing got what it deserved, mangleing all the rules. The cloud of commas decided that now would be a good time to further complicate things. They swarmed in, making dozens of half shaped Mr. He duplicates that shouted incoherently. Some of them started brawling, others were insulting guests, while quite a few were shouting random things like, "Ba,nanna!" Or, "Pi,ckle!" The resulting chaos was infuriating. The real Reginald He shouted above the din. "Start your search! I'll be getting rid of these wretched comma duplicates!" This hopefuly would spur the contestans into movement. Comma duplicates. Wretched little beasts.
"Fuzzy!" The pirate mongoose spluttered. "I'll have yew know that I've fought cobras, adders, kraits, and even the mythical hoop snake! I deserve a little respect lass!" He was fuming now, his face turning bright red under his fur, and said fur wasn't fuzzy. It was long, and coarse. The mongoose pirate yanked an enormus machine gun from hammerspace, and yanked a kantana out of its barrel, before discarding the gun. "Aye, lass. Yew want ta go? To the 'alf death right 'ear!"
The mongoose was not stupid. Stupid mongooses die swiftly, and therefore do not pollute the genepool with stupidity. But the mongoose pirate, or Rimwarst Dayonal Mastikill if you wanted to know his full name, was very quick to anger. At first, he wanted skewer the viking who had a horned helm, when real vikings did not. Then he turned to Mr. He for violence. Striding up, Rimwarst grabbed He by the neck, and shoved his kantana against his chest. "Yew got seven minutes to sort out our maps, tell us what the 'ell is goin' on, and send us off afore I gut ya!" He was fully meaning to keep his threat. Familiarity breds bloody contempt, and he was sick of this gathering.
Mindless Goon #17, having unbound himself from the stampeding horse, averted his attention from his less-than-furtive creep towards the pie pantry and gazed with mingled interest and confusion as the piratical mongoose somehow managed to pick a fight with the Viking impersonator, Mr. He, and his boss all at once. The GCMOHS staggered, rudderless, around the room, hefting weighty blows at contestants, comma duplicates, and scantily clad showgirls alike. The word "varmint" was tragically abused and slunk off into a corner to lick its wounds.
Outside, #10 exploded with a muffled 'poof' and a twinkle of searing urple flame. Dimly #17 concluded that the goons must also be duplicates of some sort, and hoped that he would be the original goon and not one of the ones to unexpectedly detonate. Then again, being seventeenth out of twenty-one, statistics did not look promising for him. That rhubarb pie, on the other hand, appeared very promising indeed.
His being partnered with a sentient (and sapien) Tumbleweed struck Mindless Goon #17 as a bit odd, but considering the company surrounding him, he supposed stranger things could have happened. And worse things as well, such as if that biomechanical scorpion thing had been on his team. He knew as well as any cowboy hero that scorpions were to be avoided at all costs, and he'd always had something of a debilitating phobia of all things steampunk after the Incident.
"So, uh, we goin' to the big rock or what?" drawled the minion finally, keeping the scorpion under marginally close surveillance out of the corner of his glazed brown eyes.
The pirate mongoose knew when he'd been beat. The fact that several punctuation marks had beaten him was not something he was trying to think about. He was attempting to drag the viking, and the non-viking out of the hut, before everyone got a head start. "C'mon yew! If we don't git outta 'ear, we'll lose!" He then jumped through the crater in the wall, and swaggered out to the beach. "Ha! Unreal beasties beatin' me! Never, I say!" He then heard a thud behind him, accompanied by a spray of sand. His smile was still the rougish grin of before, but very much fake. He continued swaggering, very cautiously while resisting the urge to turn around. However, a large crustacean leg alerted him to what was behind him.
He swiftly turned, hoping the giant leg was some sort of prank. A briney gargle told him it was not. Rather, behind him was a giagantic blue crab. It seemed like something out of a crab catchers nightmare, but the worst part was the dull malevolent intelligence in its ugly coal like eyes. In stead of wondering what biological processes could produce such a behemoth, he did some thing else. "Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" The mongoose yelled as he broke into a run not unlike Jack Sparrow. He latched onto his teamate's arms, and attempted to drag them into the jungle, while a giant crab chased after him. When he heard leviathan breaching, the mongoose tried very hard not to die. After he was forty feet into the jungle, Rimwarst the amazing piratic mongoose checked to see if his group was still with him.
"There's gold in these here hills," the GCMOHS rumbled, still gripping one of the showgirls in a headlock. "I can smell it." Mindless Goon #2, who was in fact not so mindless as one might infer by his name, scratched his clefted chin thoughtfully.
"I thought we'd already established that," he said, and narrowly avoided a fist to the face via random implosion. The GCMOHS cursed and retracted his singed hand.
He cleared his throat loudly and repeated, "There's gold in these here hills. I can smell it, and I intend to be the one who's findin' it." The Mindless Goons nodded appreciatively and murmured in awe, and #16 too dissolved into urple fire. #17 flinched and gnawed vehemently at his fingernails and, suspiciously, a large slice of rhubarb pie. How he managed to accomplish both at once is yet another of life's strange mysteries, many of which had been brought to light in that little cottage. "Yah!" the GCMOHS barked, digging his heels into the flanks of a rather surprised looking rabid mare, who had Apparated into the room, and with that he bounded through the still-smoking hole and out onto the beach without waiting for the rest of his team. The Mindless Goons continued their appreciative nods and awestruck murmurs for an unreasonable length of time after he had vanished, until at last #8 piped up.
"I think... I think we just got left behind."
Zeltar walked up behind the dumbstruck Mindless Goons, shifting its feet in indecisiveness. Despite all its efforts, it couldn't find any description of humans in his book that matched them. They were close to four or five possible variations on humanity, but weren't close enough to any to pinpoint a definitive option. The scorpionlike being shrugged, deciding that it would switch back to human lingo if necessary, but for now, it would use its normal speaking voice.
"Not quite yet, I'm afraid!" Zeltar piped up, causing a few of the Goons to turn and stare at it. "Not every team is going in the same direction! It appears that each team has been given a similar but notably different map, judging chiefly from a few surreptitious looks I had over a few shoulders, and in one case, through quite a lot of what I'm guessing was bramble. I dearly hope that I wasn't in violation of social cues in that last case, but that's outside the point, as you may have guessed."
Zeltar unfolded its map, pointing with a claw to a spot marked with a §. "It appears that in our case, the treasure, or at least the path to said treasure, will be located in the rainforest dome."
It reached into one of its numerous packs, exchanging the map for what appeared to be a combination of a magnetometer and a pocket version of the board game Battleship.
"It is possible that, provided he does not misplace himself along the way, your employer, if I may assume such a relationship between yourselves and the man who has so recently absconded with the teleporting equine, may meet up with us at some point, or one of us may serendipitously run into the other." It looked at several of the Mindless Goons at once in a sweeping gesture of its metal-encased eyes. "Shall we go?"
Mindless Goon #17 chose that moment to conveniently choke on his pie, and #3 displayed an unexpected aptitude for performing CPR, although one might complain that he used a few more Band-Aids than was strictly necessary. When that unpleasant ordeal had been resolved, #17 grinned dopily and shoved a few extra pies into his ultra-flattering fanny pack.
"Now," announced #14 in a melodramatic stage whisper, "we ride."
No one moved for a long moment, until #19 and #20, in perfect unison, blew up. Mindless Goon #17 shrieked, dropping his plate with a tinkling crash. #15 juddered to attention and began a rather epic riding song on his inflatable tuba, and fifteen startled steeds appeared beneath the goons, crushing several still-bravely-shimmying showgirls in the process. #17 peered down at Zeltar, apprehensive, and brushed a few crumbs from his lower lip.
"So, uh, I don't suppose ya wanna horse?" he asked timidly. The biomechanical scorpion raised an eyebrow, metaphorically speaking, and at long last the ragtag crew departed the now scorched and bloodied cottage, nickering and scuttling over the sand towards the distant emerald smudge of the jungle.
((Which of the Goons are in this group, and how many are with Weed Thirty-Seven? On another question, how many of the Goons are left in their initial states, without having exploded, caught fire, or suffered from other casualties? I may need the number of people in the groups for later.))
As the group of what could largely only be called adventurers due to the lack of a better word grew closer to the jungle, a faint whirring sounded from somewhere in the skies above them. Zeltar looked up, scanning the skies in three different light patterns for potential threats, but the source of the strange noise had put into action the foolproof ages-old evasion technique of hiding behind things.
Zeltar made a mental note to check and see if he could install some sort of X-Ray vision enhancement to its ocular technology, and a second mental note to see if the X-Ray technology had any infuriating weaknesses first. There was nothing worse than installing a new modification only to find out later that it didn't work around a certain kind of metal or that the presence of the color purple would confuse and enrage it.
The Goons were loudly singing a song that Zeltar didn't recognize, which made it ever more difficult for it to determine what the likely cause of the sound was, which only subtracted processing power from the acts of analysis of the surroundings, possibilities of the treasure, potential threat assessments, and the like.
It was so wrapped up in its various thought processes, mental notes, and sub-protocols that it was completely surprised by the appearance of the wall of the rainforest dome in front of it. Though the jungle was still a ways in the distance, the designer of the treasure challenge had decided for unknown reasons to encase its entirety within a large barrier. If precedent was anything to go by, there would also be either a lava-based or ice-based dome elsewhere on the island, if not both, though neither of those were currently relevant and... Zeltar realized with a start that its pause had lasted longer than expected. Some of the Goons were looking at it in confusion, though one had a distant expression that suggested either drowsiness or concussion.
"Well," Zeltar said, somewhat unnecessarily, "It appears that the initial phase of our quest has reached a conclusion, or at least the outward appearance of one."
It pounded on the wall of the dome with its stinger tail; the barrier shifted slightly, suggesting a less-than-rigid material used in its construction. Zeltar turned to the Goons. "I don't suppose any of you would happen to have a blasting or cutting implement with you, would you? I could search my packs, but I doubt that what I have would be powerful enough to break through a dome of unknown tensile strength and likely structural resistance." It rummaged in one of the packs on its chest. "Though I may have a grenade in here somewhere if I haven't left that container in the ship, as is always possible."
((Okay, well 15/21 have thus far escaped explosion. Zeltar's group should, then, have seven. 1, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, and 17, shall we say? That leaves 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 18, and 21 for the Tumbleweed, although due to a moment of inattentiveness on my part they seem to have just galloped off without the only member of their party with a fully funcional nervous system. That may be a problem.))
"GRENADE!" vociferated Mindless Goon #13, lumbering forward and pumelling the barrier with gorilla-like arms. "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!" With a pitiful whine not unlike that of a punctured rubber chicken, the wall collapsed into a ring of ubiquitous polymer. #13 grinned and hammered his chest in a way that could be read as smug. #17 offered him a congratulatory slice of rhubarb pie, which #13 politely declined by smashing it into #15's pasty face and baying with laughter.
"I think... I think we can go in now," said #8.
"Now," said #14, "we ride."
"Does this dialogue sound redundant to you?" said #1. Mindless Goon #3 shrugged and plastered a Band-Aid onto his earlobe. And so the group proceeded with the hunt and another round of 'American Pie,' a tune that #17 took particular delight in.
The whirring sound quickly increased in volume after #13's efforts sent the nearest of the dome's segments collapsing to the ground. Zeltar looked up just in time to see a small squad of creatures emerging from the forest ahead of them, the whirring sound from earlier growing even louder as they came closer, propelled through the air by a collection of limb-like structures that formed propellors at the uppermost point on each one's body.
The creatures seemed to largely consist of a massive triangle-shaped cephalothorax, similarv in appearance to a pyramid, but with only three sides rather than four. Each side held a single eye and a lipless mouth, and the majority of those lipless mouths were opened in cries of rage.
"They broke the dome! The dome is broken now!" shouted one of the creatures, which seemed to be on the verge of hysterics.
"ERROR: a section of the dome wall has collapsed! Overall efficiency of dome for containment decreased by twelve to fifteen percent! CALCULATING EXACT DAMAGE." announced a second one of the triangular-headed creatures.
"Trespassing entities! Cease motion and repair the destruction that you have caused!" shouted a third, who unlike the others seemed to be less affected by the collapsing of the wall and more by the fact that it was done deliberately. It swooped toward them, followed by eight of its brethren. About a dozen more were still flying around the upper reaches of the trees, including the other two speakers, and a continued whirring in the trees suggested that more were coming.
Zeltar leapt into the air and snapped its claws at one of the attacking creatures. Its left claw gripped his aggressors's propellor, causing the creature to lose its balance, and with a yelp, it fell to the ground, carrying Zeltar with it. As they hit the ground, the impact knocked open one of the scorpionlike being's packs, sending assorted small gizmos and curiosities flying onto the grassy ground of the jungle dome.
Zeltar, taking advantage of the creature's brief moment of surprise, spread out his limbs and stuck them fast to the ground, attempting to pin the creature before it could get airborne again. Unfortunately, his opponent's unfamiliar body shape made it difficult for Zeltar to distribute his weight effectively, and the creature easily threw him off, hopping away on a set of previously folded-up pseudopods and glaring at Zeltar.
"Approximately thirty percent flight efficiency lost as the result of aggressive action!" it snapped. "Launching countermeasures!" Fully extending the psuedopods underneath it, the creature launched itself at Zeltar, positioning itself so that its propellor, which had begun to spin alomst as fast as it had when the creature was airborne, was aimed directly at Zeltar's head. The scorpionlike being tensed its porganic muscles, pulling up its stinger tail to allow for a quick counterattack once the creature got within range.
Nearby, four of the nine attacking creatures surrounded the Goons, whirring, hissing, and shouting at varying volumes. The four remaining from the attack party spread out around the eight trespassers, ready to swoop in and back up any one of their fellows that might need it. Two of the inner four, acting on small signals from the others in their party, dove straight for Goon #8.
((Bluh, sub-par fight scene writing is sub-par. You get the picture, though. Creatures attack! Number and placement of opponents! What do you do?))
Rimwarst the amazing piratic mongoose had lost his group. He assumed that some sort of beach peril had killed them, meaning that he could still claim the treasure in their stead. He stopped to look at an dome incasing what seemed to be some sort of jungle. The sign attached to the dome read, 'Some sort of jungle.'
That settled it! He was going to have to smash his way in, and by jove he would! He was just about to ram his sword into a small crack when the whole thing vanished. The lack of wall threw the mongoose's lunge off balance, so he rolled downhill until he hit his head on a banyan tree. Leaping up, the mongoose hit his head again on a overhanging branch. All around him, a stereotyped jungle grew. It was likely modeled after the Amazon rainforest, if the hoatzin was anything to go by. Some feline resmbling an ocelot was nuzzling him. Rimwarst knew that ocelots were just as capable of mauling him as a tiger was, but what the heck? He started petting it, and then it said in a distinctly feminine voice, "Ooh, you are strong." Rimwarst dropped the ocelot like he'd been bitten. "Aaaaahhhh!" He turned around to see a huge smilodon behind him, also talking. "Whatchoo doin' with my girl!" The mongoose's response was this. "Aaaaahhhhhh! Again!"
He quickly ran out of the clearing on all fours, scurrying through the underbrush. He was more scared of the ocelot than the smilodon, but wasn't to keen on either. Rimwarst curled up under a bush to catch his breath for a while. Well, that was the plan anyways. He then fell into a deep sleep that was only interuppted when he ripped out the throats of various creatures trying to eat him as he slept. After an hour, Rimwarst woke up, and cursed loudly one he realized how long he'd slept. Straiting his tricorn cap, the mongoose set out. He was now perched on a stone carving of a feathered snake head, one of many to jut from the square ruins of some Mayan derived civilization. He pulled out the map Mr. He had given him, and decided to check it. It showed an image of his head, in relation to €, which never always doesn't mark the spot of treasure. He poked a claw at the ruins on the map, and to his suprise, Mr. He's voice began explaining the area. "The temple of Featherboactaol. Inhabited by a race of savage beast men who worship the eldritch god Feather- , oh I already told you this! They fear the return of the ultimate evil, the demon Rimswarstical, who manifests as a mongoose with a vest, and hat in impossible colors. In other words, old chap, you are done for." The message ended in time for Rimwarst to realize he was surrounded by creatures that looked like a cross between man, boar, and bandicoot. They were wearing pelts, and holding obsidian spears. Oh poop. The mongoose looked down at the red clay of the temple, and then at the upper dome. "Help!"
Oh, blast it all. We're lost, aren't we? Weed Thirty-Seven asked of no one in particular. It had known that trusting Goons #5-#7 to handle the map had been a bad idea, but the Tumbleweed had always found it incredibly difficult to hold anything with bramble instead of fingers.
Subsequently, half of the map had caught fire when Goon #6 had caught fire for no apparent reason, as seemed to be commonplace for whatever species he was, and since Goon #18 had seen fit to put said fire out by shoving the map in his mouth, about one-half of the surviving half was now almost illegible. And, as any experienced treasure-hunter will tell you, one should never go looking for anything when one has only the far right one-fourth of a map.
The Goons seemed to be taking the nigh-on destruction of the map and the heavy burns on two of their compatriots rather well, since their spirits seemed high, high enough in Goon #11's case that he occasionally belted out half-forgotten snatches of songs based on what he had just heard.
"Oh, we're lost! Yes, we're lost! And we can't feel our fingers! Cause weeee forgot out jackeeets and we're lost!"
We're in a blooming jungle, you simpleton. Weed Thirty-Seven muttered. You can't get cold-induced numbness in a blooming jungle. You're using that song in an entirely different context than it was originally written for.
Of course, the Tumbleweed had long since given up trying to quiet down the Goons, and was now contenting itself with stating the varied and numerous things that irritated it about their company.
Suddenly, a loud cry for help from a far to the left briefly drowned out #11's song. If Weed Thirty-Seven had ears, it would have perked them, and if it ha eyes, they might have narrowed. However, since it had no face, it cut right to the chase and went to go see what was going on.
On a carving below the bluff that the group was standing on, a pirate mongoose that Weed Thirty-Seven recognized as the one who had assaulted Mr. He's duplicate at the starting hut was surrounded by marsupial-like humanoids with large wicked-looking facial tusks. For some reason, the creatures appeared to have shaped their weapons entirely out of some sort of vitreous igneous rock, despite the fact that the island had shown no sign of volcanic activity and the creatures didn't seem the type to go off the island to get it. Weed Thirty-Seven made a mental note to investigate the peculiarity later before turning in the direction of Goons #4 and #5.
We need a map. it stated. This one may have a map. However, it may not match up with our map. What do you say? Do we save him, or let the beast-men have at him and take the map when he's down? Either way, we get his map, but the first option means we'd need to deal with him the rest of the trip, and the second option means the beast-men are probably going to end up murdering him or sacrificing him or otherwise being fatally unpleasant.
"So..." replied Goon #5, showing the quickness of thought that his people were known for. "We voting?"
Not really. answered Weed Thirty-Seven. I was just going over the options to myself. I honestly wouldn't trust any one of you to come to a well-thought-out conclusion.
"I resent that remark!" yelled Goon #7, raising his hand in the air. As Weed Thirty-Seven shifted in irritation, he rocked back on his heels and grinned "And I don't even know what 'remark' means. That's how much I resent it."
And that is precisely why. Weed Thirty-Seven said, shuffling his stems in irritation.
With a low whoomph, Goon #6 once again burst into flames, and immediately began shouting and batting at his shirt. Seizing the opportunity, Weed Thirty-Seven nudged the Goon over the edge of the bluff, narrowly avoiding the areas on his body that were producing the oddly-colored flames.
The vaguely porcine beast-men down below, who had been advancing closer after the mongoose's shout for help, looked over with a start as the flaming Goon rolled toward them, boggling at the brightly glowing body right up until the moment it exploded. The bright flash of light created by the blast caused many of the beast-men to clutch at their eyes, and several of them stumbled into the undergrowth to escape the human bombs that their demon foe had sent down upon them. The few that remained stared up in the direction that the Goon-bomb had rolled from, and focused quickly on Weed Thirty-Seven. If the Tumbleweed had possessed a face, it would've been smirking.
That was an accident. it announced. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Weed Thirty-Seven's stems bristled, and one creature uncertainly pointed its quite heavy rock spear at the Tumbleweed. Would you like to see what I can do on purpose?
"I think..." said Mindless Goon #8, as was his wont, while the strange geometric creatures converged on him. "I think these thingies are hostile." The triangular prisms began to gouge at his exposed skin with surprisingly sharp barbed pseudopods, eliciting a high-pitched squeal of empathy from Goon #1. Under further examination, he was actually imitating a wild hog that had charged from the exotic undergrowth, although none present had the time for such observations. The wild hog, however, got their attention. The seemingly caffeinated creature snorted and careened into the beleagured #8, knocking him flat on his back and dispersing the buzzing cloud of 'thingies.' Said 'thingies' turned on their new foe with a monotone chorus of "Foreign adversary identified. Mammal. Scientific name: Sus scrofa. Experiencing intense emotions of choler. Danger level: High."
#8 scrabbled in the pale sand, desperately straining to reach #3's first aid kit.
"Get yer grubby paws off, varmint!" cried the self-nominated medic, slapping his hand away. "Dem Band-Aids is mine. Don't think I don't see de lust in yer eyes. Mine!" #8 moaned, dejected.
Meanwhile, the boar snapped and kicked at the pullulating 'thingies.' It struck some of the less idiotic members of the group- namely Zeltar- that such creatures were not usually native to the jungle. Then again, the pyramidal 'thingies' could hardly be called common fauna. Mindless Goon #13 belted out a verse of 'Gagnam Style' mangled beyond recognition as he bludgeoned pig and unidentified flying object with equal ardor, while #17 fearfully noshed on yet more pie, #3 lovingly caressed his Band-Aid box and murmured something disturbingly Gollum-esque, #8 lay sprawled on the ground with his tongue lolling, and the other Goons made a valiant effort to lodge bullets in their own noses. The scorpion telepathically wagged a claw at the GCMOHS for allowing the pitiful beings to play with revolvers and viciously delved his stinger into a 'thingy' for twisted compensation. Or perhaps it was simply self defense.
Rimwarst looked up at the buzzing pyramids. It wasn't his concern at the moment, and they only seemed interested in the other contestants, not him. However, the marsupial beast creatures were running away in fear. The mongoose knew this was known as a bad sign, and the things were probaly worse than anything else he'd come across on the blasted island. He did not run as things as they swarmed him, but held his ground nobley. One flying pyramid looked at him with a bloodshot, yet somehow wilver eyeball disapprovingly. "Subject is a adult Herpestese ichneumon. It is currently releasing stored waste." It zipped over to one of its comrades, and they conversed in a strange language that seemed to be composed of buzzing, and the word crumpet.
The strange geometric being spiraled over, then examined Rimwarst with each of its eyes in turn, and then sniffed him with its orifices located below the eyes. Rimwarst had decided that the creatures were computers for no particular reason, and was going to guess some command. "Oy! Yew lot be'er lissen up! I'm initiatin' plan zed dash crumpit disco disco!" He smiled smugly before realizing how stupid his plan was. How on earth was a few words going to stop these things! The pyramidal creatures were massing in a huge swarm, extending barbed pseudopods to rain down on him in a swarm of death! Rimwarst closed his eyes, waiting for the end. He crouched over, curled in fear when the drone of the, thingies, for a lack of any other name reached his ears. "Zed dash crumpit disco disco accepted. Prepare for jungle annihalation via fire." The mongoose uncurled to hear the first notes of Disco Inferno. He had to admit those things knew how to get the most out of a trombone. Then he remembered the whole jungle annihalation bit. "Aaaaaahhhhhhh!" He screamed as he ran inwards, towards the next dome. The lead singer of the Xoltaquiet band of eternal entrophy rotated to watch the fleeing figure dash through burning shrubbery. "How rude." It buzzed, before resuming its lethal song.
Before any being had walked through the door, a banner popped into being for a seemingly no reason, and loudly proclaimed, while managing to somehow speak in caps lock, regardless of how impossible that may be. It proclaimed, "PEICE, AND PIECE ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!" It then popped out of being. The best reason anyone would come up with for its popping into existence would be to cover up some foolish author's typo.